Brands will experiment with platforms and experiences that enable closer bonds with consumers. Creative ideas will focus on delivering brand experiences people want to engage with and share. Digital campaigns will begin online and drive people into the real world for rewards. As the web becomes more social, niche applications will help consumers reduce information overload. Brands will need to stop adding noise and provide value to consumers' lives.

1. 2011
WHAT’S
NEXT?
Produced by Chemistry Communications Group, for more information please contact Omaid Hiwaizi, omaid.hiwaizi@chemistrygroup.co.uk

2. 2011. A year of further experimentation with a variety of
platforms and experiences that enable brands to form
even closer bonds with consumers | Creative ideas will
be about delivering brand experiences that people want
to engage with and share, and media should be planned
around extending the narrative of those experiences |
Digital campaigns will begin on any one of a multitude of
screens and drive people away from their desk tops,
their lap tops, out their homes and into the real and
augmented world for rewards, prizes or enhanced status
| But as the web becomes even more social, niche
applications will help consumers retreat from the
overload and regain their privacy | Hacktevism has made
us question internet security, and more people will think
before clicking, submitting, subscribing and sharing. |
Brands will have to stop adding to the noise and seek
new ways to add value to consumers’ lives.

3. Three rich
themes
1. Rich experiences are
the best advertising
2. The internet gets a lot
more social
3. Mobile bridges the
digital and real world
divide

4. Rich
experiences
are the best
advertising
Not content with the 30 second ad
anymore, brands are venturing into
more interesting territory that
generates word of mouth,
spreadability or enhanced
experiences. We expect this is just
the beginning of far more
experimentation - and imitation - as
brands seek to cut through the clutter
and make their messaging stand out.

5. Fun
experiences
Volkswagen’s Fun Theory campaign
is based on the idea that behaviour
can be changed for the better by
engaging people in game-like
mechanics that make changing
behaviour fun. From turning stairs
into piano keys and bottle banks
into arcade games to rewarding
people for obeying the speed limit
through a lottery, Volkswagen has
shown that inducing people to
modify their behaviour with fun
mechanics is an effective and
engaging approach.

6. Cinematic
experiences
BMW delivered a cinematic
‘afterimage’ in its latest big screen
commercial. Using the concept of
the afterimage that occurs when
you stare into the sun and then
close your eyes, the BMW logo
flashed at the end of the ad as it
instructed the viewers to close their
eyes. The BMW logo was
emblazoned onto the audience’s
inner eyelids.

7. St John’s Ambulance relied
on theatrics to dramatise the
importance of knowing first
aid, with a ‘member’ of the
audience rushing down to
the front of the cinema and
the appearing in the film to
save the life of a young child
choking on popcorn.

8. Digital
projections
Ralph Lauren delivered the
‘World’s first 4-Dimensional
experience’ on its flagship store
building in Bond Street (72 000
views of the official video on
YouTube to date), while the
Toyota Auris Hybrid had a digital
3D make over in front of a live
audience in Shoreditch (130 000
views of the official video on
YouTube to date).

9. Social media
experiences
The Old Spice guy’s video responses to a range
of high profile Twitter users was a pioneering,
real-time, social media campaign that
generated over 100M views in a week,
and was the only branded video
content to make it into
YouTube’s Top 10 Most
Watched Videos in 2010.

10. Hot on the heels of the Old Spice guy’s video responses
was Skittles Mob the Rainbow, who used Facebook as
a platform for their Super Mega Rainbow Update
experience that saw operators reading out Facebook
status updates that had been submitted. Orange
followed suit shortly afterwards with their singing
Tweetagrams. What next we wonder…

11. Video on the internet is not yet
A richer delivering the interactive experiences
that other formats are. But with the
rise of clickable video, and a few
video interesting (creative and commercial)
applications of the technology in the
experience past year, we expect to see more
commercial and creative executions
appearing. Clickable video offers new
opportunities for extended narratives,
deeper interaction and better insight
into those interactions.
One excellent example is Tipp-ex,
who gave viewers of their ‘Hunter
Shoots Bear’ video the chance to
change the outcome.

12. Other good examples of brands
using clickable video: Hot Wheels
enabled viewers to customize a
car while the video progressed,
Google Chrome’s Fastball game
allowed participants to interact with
a video that incorporated Twitter
and Google Maps, and French
Connection’s YouTique lets you
click to buy from their style guide
videos.

13. Delivering a rich experience
• Have a clear view of what you’re trying to achieve
• Align with commercial objectives
• Emphasise the human aspects of the brand essence
(if these don’t exist, it won’t work)
• Deliver an experience that your customers will actually want
to engage with
• At least two of Entertaining, Interesting and Useful
• Make it easy to engage and share
• It doesn’t have to be big or expensive, but rich and
rewarding

14. The internet
gets a lot more
social
Everything is social now. From the
ubiquity of the Facebook Like
button and our reliance on
Youtube for bite-sized
entertainment and information to
the pricing pressure brought about
by social shopping and the
mobilising effect of platforms like
Twitter, the social web is part of
our lives and, like it or scared of it,
it isn’t going anywhere. On the
contrary, the party is just getting
started.

15. Google has had varying levels of success with its attempts to get social. Google
Wave has been shelved for the moment, but Google Real Time Search is proving
to be a useful tool. Earlier this year Mashable predicted the search giant would
launch its own social network, Google Me, although the caveat was that it might
just add a social layer to its existing products and services. At the same time, Apple
has incorporated its social Game Center on the iPhone and Ping (‘a social network
for music’) into iTunes 10. As the web gets even more social, the opportunities for
brands to connect one-on-one with consumers become even more exciting.

16. Social
browsing
What’s next in the evolution of the
social web? Rockmelt thinks it’s social
browsing. The new social browser is
designed to let users share everything
they do with the friends on Facebook
and Twitter. According to the company,
'Today, the browser connects you to
your world. Why not build your world
right into your browser?’ Use Facebook
Connect and Rockmelt together and
you can see all your friends online and
share with them in a single window.
Aside from being social, Rockmelt
wants to help you managed the
information you receive by serving you
up only a limited number of Google
search results (ten).

17. Bing & Facebook
hope to make search
social
It’s not just new players trying to influence the way we
navigate the web. In deals struck last year, Facebook and
Twitter data will be fed into Bing search results, where
appropriate, to deliver a more personalised search
experience based on what a searcher’s friends have liked.
The move is likely to boost ‘search underdog’ Microsoft’s
share of search and usher in a new way of searching the web
for users.

18. Pricing
Pandemonium
Thanks to group buying, member sales,
local discounts, flash sales and dynamic
pricing, everyone from the global
supermarket chain to the local
hairdresser can inject some fun and
sociability into their price promotions, and
everything from cars to cardigans can be
sold at a discount commensurate with the
interest generated. Consumers win,
businesses win and brands win.
Expect bigger and better things from
Groupon 2.0, including stores setting up
their own presence on the site and
DealFeed, allowing users to set up
personalized deal alerts based on what
they’re interested in.

19. Member sales from websites
like vente-privee bring
affordable luxury to
consumers. Walmart offers
flash sales on Facebook if
enough people click the like
button. And sites like
threadless.com are using
Twitter and Facebook to
promote limited time deals.

20. The internet
isn’t just social:
It’s coming
soon to a TV
near you.
A new generation of television sets, set top
boxes and Blu-Ray players are using apps to
put the web and social media on our TV
screens, further boosting the ubiquity of the
internet in our lives and establishing it as the
primary supplier of entertainment in the home.
Enabled by, among others, Samsung’s Blu-Ray
player, Panasonic’s VieraCast and Google TV,
soon we will all be surfing with our remotes and
making internet consumption as much a family
or group affair as TV always has been. With the
entire consumer journey, from seeing a TV spot
to visiting a website to completing the
transaction, now being done on a single screen
with multiple windows via a remote control,
marketers will have to pay even more attention
to their entire engagement architecture and a
the delivery of a seamless experience.

22. With over 500 million active users, more than 700 billion
minutes spent on the site per month, and the second
most visited website globally after Google, Facebook is a
microcosm of sorts with its own emerging trends. With
the help of Mashable.com, we have five Facebook
predictions for the coming months and years.
1. More brands offering ‘Facebook Exclusives’ – news, products, offers, competitions, limited editions, opportunities to
participate etc - to fans of brand and product pages. Facebook Exclusives offers brands an opportunity to engage in genuine
value exchange, so that consumers have a reason to follow them on Facebook.
2. More experimentation with Facebook Places. Now the world’s largest social network offers opportunities to engage in
location based marketing, we expect forward looking brands and local businesses to start taking more chances in this area.
3. Whether it’s to allow fans to engage in social shopping, or for the convenience of completing transactions without having to
leave Facebook, Facebook Commerce offers a multitude of businesses the opportunity to sell direct from their Facebook
page.
4. Competition for share of news feeds hots up as Tweet streams, foursquare, Farmville actions and Facebook check-ins
are all integrated into Facebook’s live feed. Competition is even stiffer as more brands offer incentives to fan their page. The
Hide Feed button to the left of statuses is subtle but more users are becoming familiar with blocking out the news they’re not
interested in.
5. Some businesses have been delivering real-time customer service via their Facebook page for a while now, but we
expect more of this as in-Facebook support and customer centre platforms like Get Satisfaction are adopted by more
companies.

23. BUT is it all
getting a bit
too social?

24. Retreating from
the social web?
As the internet and the social web continue
their seemingly unstoppable march towards
ubiquity, there are signs that we could be in for
a rebalancing shift too. From high profile Twitter
Suicides and every day Facebook departures to
renowned bloggers shutting down their
operations, some people at least are finding
that it’s time to retreat from the all-consuming
world of social media.
Paul Adams, who works in the UX team at
Google, highlighted the differences between
our online and offline social networks in his
much-shared presentation The Real Life Social
Network, pointing out that while the average
number of Facebook friends is around 180, the
average American only has between 6 and 10
people they see or speak to weekly.
Cue Path.com, a new social network that limits
every user to 50 friends. That number is
apparently scientifically informed rather than
randomly chosen. Could this be the beginning
of social media ‘cocooning’? Or an even bigger
trend in which we strive to better manage the
information overload of the internet as well our
own contributions towards it?

25. Less is more,
again
As social settings become more pervasive
across the internet, more questions will be
asked about social media’s role in our lives
and more emphasis will be placed on
privacy and being able to ‘switch off’. We
expect the concept of the Web of Intent to
gain more traction, especially among the
digitally savvy.
While Facebook is helping users to manage
their profiles and what is shared with whom
in their networks with Facebook Groups,
DeleteMe is offering a service to erase
personal information from the web. In a sign
that users are reducing the information they
receive Who Unfollowed Me is an
application that helps Twitter users to see
who has stopped receiving their tweets.
As consumers modify their online behaviour
and retreat from the information overload,
brands will need to think about modifying
their behaviour too. It won’t be enough to
post a daily Facebook status on a brand
page any longer. Only the most value-adding
voices will be allowed to be heard if the
future is indeed about the Web of Intent.

26. Getting social
• The explosion in social media is both exhilarating and frightening
• There’s no single process to decide which of the multitude of
things that you could do, you should do.
• Start with what you know you know
• Decide what you want to achieve from your social media
activities –awareness, engagement, customer insight, sales
etc – and have realistic expectations
• Understand how your customers want to interact with you in
this space - listen to and engage with them
• Recognise that there aren’t hard and fast rules, so be prepared for
some platforms and approaches to fail.
• Measure qualitatively as well as quantitatively
• Be mindful of the difference between scale and quality of
interaction

27. Mobile bridges
the digital and
real world divide
2010 was the year that mobile
went main stream. Hardware and
software advances, application
developments, enhanced user
experiences, brand or business
initiatives and rapid consumer
adoption finally came together en
mass, providing numerous ways to
communicate and interact while on
the move. From rewards and
incentives to games and educational
or informative applications, marketers
now have a variety of ways to
connect with consumers wherever
they are, enhancing experiences by
bridging the real and the digital world.

28. Tablet PCs
drive on-the-
go browsing
Spurred on by an enhanced user
experience, more brands are seeking
to connect with high net audiences
through the iPad. From Burberry
handing them to shoppers in-store to
view the new collection online to
Cadillac’s partnership with Cool
Hunting to produce their iPad app in
exchange for exclusive branded
presence to Richard Branson’s iPad-
only publication, Project Magazine,
available from the app store for £1.79
an issue. We even saw the Xtra
Factor presenters using iPads to
connect to the at-home audience in
real time on the live television show.
Tablet PCs are the bridge between
the better experience of browsing on
a PC and the convenience of the
mobile internet, and growth
predictions of tablet computing are
exciting.

29. The games
brands play
Globally, 350 million people spend a
combined 3 billion hours per week
playing (video) games, according to
FastCompany. So it’s no wonder that
marketers are using game mechanics
to drive and reward loyalty, and
consumers are taking up the
challenge. The rise in smart phone
usage and usability and on-the-go
connectivity means that game
mechanics can be the bridge between
the online and the virtual world.
Foursquare was one of the first
movers in this arena with their badges
and mayorships rewarding check ins,
but incorporating gaming mechanics
via mobile phone technology is
something we expect to see a lot
more in the future. One notable stunt
from the past year was Jimmy Choo’s
Catch a Choo which saw dozens of
people scrambling to win a pair of
Jimmy Choo trainers every time the
shoes checked into a new location on
Foursquare.

30. Where is
everyone?
As brands and advertisers find
smart new ways to reward people
for their data, we expect location-
based social networking to go
mainstream. Facebook Places
and Foursquare have got the
lion’s share of the press about
location-based services, but new
platforms like the GoldRun app,
which ‘enables users to see,
interact with and take pictures of
GPS-linked virtual objects
positioned in the real world’ (while
guided by brands, products and
celebrities and rewarded with
virtual gifts and status symbols)
are also looking for new ways to
engage and reward users.
Radio-frequency identification
(RFID) technology is also set to
boost the use of mobile phones
for payment and loyalty rewards
including promotional offers and
coupons at the point of purchase.

31. Keeping
customers
coming back
for more
Less of a game and more a way to build
loyalty - through promotions and incentives
delivered to customers’ mobile phones at the
point of purchase - is the incorporation of
Radio-frequency identification (RFID)
technology. Dairy Queen in the US has been
one of the early adopters of this technology,
giving free RFID tags to customers to attach
to their mobile phones in exchange for point
of purchase rewards.
Another development in point of sale
rewards is Taggo. Still in its test phase,
Taggo brings fan recognition to the point of
sale with a tap and go feature that lets
customers enjoy Facebook fan benefits at
real-world shops and businesses.
Consumers become a fan of a favorite brand
on Facebook, then turn on tap and go on the
brand's Facebook page. By registering their
transit card or other contactless card, they
can simply tap at the point of sale for fan
discounts and other special privileges.

32. Scantastic
applications
on mobile
phones
Mobile scanning is growing in
popularity, and applications vary
from winning competitions
(stickybits.com) to comparing
prices (Shop Savvy) to updating
your shopping list (Tesco phone
app) to visual search via Google
Goggles.
And while QR codes have been big
in Japan for years, we are
suddenly seeing more use of them
in advertising in the UK, with
Waitrose going so far as to feature
a QR code at the end of their
festive season TV ad. With mobile
surfing on the rise, QR codes offer
great opportunities to extend
marketing messages to the web
via a seamless user journey and
provide exclusive competitions
and offers.

33. Integrating mobile
• This is the first year that mobile internet and geolocation
technologies are sufficiently widespread for interesting
mobile ideas to be executed at scale
• Consider how your existing activities can be extended to
mobile and allocate budget for this
• Ideas needs to be rich – a mix of useful, interesting,
entertaining, and simple.
• Incorporate mobile as part of the whole user journey,
understanding where, when and why consumers might
connect with your brand on the move
• Remember that consumers usually only share their data
when there’s a clear value exchange in their favour
• Rewards can be both tangible and intangible